IT leaders play a significant role in the success of a tech company. IT leaders are key persons for driving digital transformation, aligning IT with business strategy, fostering innovation, managing IT talent and imperative change agents within an organisation.

Life has taken a different course post-COVID-19 pandemic and has resulted in a myriad of changes in almost every aspect of life, even in the lives of IT leaders.

To some extent, IT leaders are having quite a headache to build a strong tech team which has resulted in a decline of business growth and efficiency of individual tech team members.

This article explores four key ways IT leaders can embark on building a strong tech team.

1.Upskill Through Further Education & Training

They say that education is a continuous and never-ending process. In that vein, IT leaders must ensure that all team members have dedicated time to learning and re-learning new technologies that are of key importance to their knowledge base.

Monthly training sessions or participating in cyber security courses online should be encouraged. This will help bootstrap the information the tech team garners from their further education and ask experts in the field anything that baffles their minds during the training session.

Statistics show that 74% of workers are willing to learn new skills or re-train to remain on top of their game.

In the same vein, IT leaders must endeavour to actively partake in constant leadership and management workshops as it is good for their growth as leaders.

2.Promote Collaboration instead of Delegation

Another way IT leaders can build a strong team is to practice collaboration more often than delegation. Collaboration promotes more creative thinking and brings all hands on deck to tackle a problem, as opposed to delegation where one person is assigned to a task.

When coworkers collaborate on shared tasks, it ensures that everyone is on the same page and it encourages team members to take on new responsibilities. Collaboration also serves as a great opportunity for the team to work on their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills which are of great value to thriving in a team. 

3.Commit to Diversity in Your Team

Diversity is a great spice in creating a holistic environment. The Recordpoint Vice President of People, Molly Rowe, managed to get its engineering staff to comprise of more than 35% women and a great representation of 20 ethnicities.

Rowe said diversity initiatives require stern leadership and take time, so IT leaders should practice patience in attaining this feat.

Ability Options Australia advocates that the benefits derived from diversity within a tech team are imperative as it promotes:

- Increased productivity

- Increased creativity

- Improved cultural awareness

- A positive reputation

- Increase in marketing opportunities

It may surprise you to learn that organisations in the top quartile for ethnic diversity have a 36% chance of financial outperformance. This underscores the importance of inclusion and diversity in a team, particularly for IT leaders. They must prioritise employing individuals from diverse backgrounds and refrain from adhering to stereotypical mindsets that are derogatory.

4.Use Team Management Resources

Team management resources such as Slack, Calendly and Asana are of great importance for effective team communication and management. These tools allow for direct, real-time messaging so the issue of several emails being exchanged to reach a consensus is reduced. This allows for streamlined and efficient processes in the team.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the other hand, is yet another great team management resource tool. It drives digital innovation and transformation at a faster pace.

Generative AI is a subfield of AI that possesses the quality of data analysis, automated content production, improved customer experience, cost & time efficiency, task automation, data analysis, personalization, and customization. This branch of AI is crucial for tech teams to thrive and grow even stronger. Application of generative AI is visible in ChatGPT, Google Bard, Bing Chat, Midjourney, GitHub Copilot and Dall-E 2.

Conclusion

The role of IT leaders cannot be downplayed as it is evident that they play a crucial role in an organisation’s success.

IT leaders can build a strong tech team by practicing the art of constant education and training, promoting more collaboration than delegation, committing to diversity and inclusion, and employing the use of team management resources.